Jose Mourinho demands strong refereeing against Man City's 'tactical fouling' as he ramps up mind games

Jose Mourinho has fanned the flames ahead of Sunday's potentially explosive Manchester derby by urging referee Michael Oliver to clamp down on what he claims to be Manchester City’s deliberate “tactical fouling”.

The Manchester United manager has also raised the prospect of parking the bus against City at Old Trafford by claiming Paul Pogba’s suspension has robbed his side of their midfield creativity and will force them to “play a different way”.

Mourinho had already lit the touch paper by branding City a team of divers and claiming Pep Guardiola has received preferential treatment from the authorities by allowing the City manager to wear a yellow ribbon in support of jailed Catalan pro-independence politicians.

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And the Portuguese has now aimed another barb at the Premier League leaders by accusing them of committing cynical fouls when they lose the ball on the transition and called on Oliver to police it.

“I know, yes, yes,” Mourinho said when City’s tactic of strategic fouling was suggested to him. “I know. It is a strategy that they have. They put lots of people in attacking areas. They attack with a lot of players.

“When they lose the ball, they are many times unbalanced in numbers, they have lots of people surrounding the ball area – and this is a great quality – transition in the next few seconds after they lose the ball.

“And many times, they need what is called a tactical foul and then it is up to the referee to analyse and to make a decision about it but I cannot speak about that.”

Asked if he believes City will adopt such an approach as a means of thwarting United’s counter-attacks, Mourinho added: “My answer always has to be, ‘The referee has to do his job’ and I cannot speak about the referee.”

Mourinho said opposition managers should not be looking to United to “find a magical potion” to stop City and made no attempt to sugarcoat the loss of Pogba, whose red card against Arsenal has ruled him out of the next three matches.

“It’s not pessimistic, it’s just a different way to play football,” Mourinho said of the impact of Pogba’s suspension. “Do you think I have in my team a midfield player who can create what Pogba did for the third goal at Arsenal? We don’t have one. So it’s not being pessimistic, it’s just to play a different way.

“There was a Manchester United with Paul, there was a Manchester United without Paul and we have another Manchester United with Paul. He is a player that has an impact in our style of play. That is obvious and now for the next three matches we have to cope without Paul.”